Arrivals

When Cheryl was pregnant with Allison, she and the other children came back to the states from Burkina Faso nine weeks before I did because after a certain time the airlines would not let her fly. That separation was a hard time for our family. It was the longest period in our marriage that Cheryl and I have been separated.

A young pilot who served with us in Burkina Faso usually lived in the capital city, but he moved out to our house in the village and lived with me during those nine weeks. Neither of us was a very good cook. Out in the bush where we lived there were no stores, no restaurants, and no ready-to-eat food. Everything had to be prepared from scratch. We ate a lot of goat meat and eggs so we had plenty of protein.

Cheryl and the children had been living in a home provided by a church in east Memphis. Cheryl was going to have our baby at Baptist Hospital East, so we would be close when the time of birth arrived.

I flew back to the states just one week before the baby was due. My route took me from Ouagadougou to Paris to New York. JFK airport in New York City was like another country, but I knew that my next stop was Memphis, and I was almost home. Home was where my family was.

I was so excited, but it was a long trip, and I was not feeling well, so I fell asleep on that last flight. As the wheels of the plane touched down, I awoke in a daze. Then it hit me that I was going to be reunited with my family in a few minutes. I wanted to tell all the people leaving the plane that my family was waiting to greet me, so they might get out of my way. But I didn’t, and they didn’t.

Ever so slowly we moved through the jetway and into the building. This was 1982 when families could still come to the arrival gate to greet you. As I turned the corner, I saw family members waiting. But why were there TV cameras with bright lights pointed at us? Why were all those hordes of people there staring at the passengers coming off the plane? I knew there were a lot of extended family members waiting to greet me, but the TV cameras? As I was greeting my family, the crowd started clapping their hands and saying, “There she is, there she is.”

Some of the crowd starting waving signs that said, “Welcome to Memphis, Maria.” I then learned that the crowd was greeting Maria von Trapp who, unbeknown to me, had been on the plane with me.

She had been invited to Memphis as a special guest for the opening of a production of “The Sound of Music.” That was quite a memorable arrival for many people, but my arrival was more important for my family—and for me!

Another long-anticipated arrival took place a few days later as Allison Joy was born. The birth of a fourth child was not planned by her parents, but she was definitely planned by God, and that is why we gave her the middle name of Joy—she was and has continued to be a joy in our lives and in the lives of her own family and her siblings and the families of her siblings. Thank you, Lord, for anticipated arrivals and most of all for unanticipated joys.